This invention relates to a plough for winning a mineral from a mineral face or seam in a mine working. The invention is particularly, but not solely, concerned with a plough for use in mining coal.
Various coal ploughs are known which can win coal over the entire thickness of a coal seam. Such ploughs are also adaptable to variations in seam thickness. For example, Dt-Gb No. 1,990,314 describes a coal plough having two interconnected plough bodies which are provided with cutters and which are guided on a plough guide. The two plough bodies are connected together in a tension-proof manner by means of a beam pivotally connected to both bodies. Further cutters are provided on carriers which are pivotally mounted on the beam. Each such carrier is mounted on the beam by means of a parallelogram linkage so that it can be pivoted out and upwards towards the roof above the cutting height of the cutters provided on the plough bodies themselves. Thus, it is possible to win the entire thickness of a seam even where the seam varies in thickness. The carriers are pivoted out to bring their cutters into use by means of pressurized gas rams connected to a common compressed gas reservoir. Each ram is interposed, approximately in an upright position, between the beam and the lower link of the corresponding parallelogram linkage.
It is also known (see Dt-As 1,238,418) to equip coal ploughs with hydraulically extensible cutters or cutter carriers. In this case, the cutters or carriers are extended by means of hydraulic rams supplied, for example, with pressurized hydraulic fluid from hydraulic accumulators attached to the plough.
The aim of the invention to provide a plough, having two plough bodies interconnected by a rigid beam, which will have a great range of adjustment of its working height, which is of robust construction, and whose beam can be placed so high thaat at least a part of the material won by the plough can be loaded onto a conveyor through the space beneath the beam.